May Cover Revealed: Batman: Arkham Origins

Warner Bros. Games Montreal has taken the mantle of the bat from Rocksteady Studios this time around for Batman: Arkham Origins. WB Montreal has full access to Rocksteady's custom modified Unreal engine to capture the look and feel of the Arkhamverse. As the title suggests, the game takes place years before both of the previous Arkham titles when a young, unrefined Batman encounters many supervillains for the first time. On our full cover image below, fans will recognize the assassin Deathstroke, who appears for the very first time in a core Arkham game.

Heading up the vision for Arkham Origins is creative director Eric Holmes, known for being the lead designer of open world action hits The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction and Prototype. A self-professed lover of comics, Holmes even wrote the miniseries Transformers: Megatron Origin for IDW.

But that's not all. We also have a feature on the first handheld Arkham game, Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate. Releasing on 3DS and Vita the same day as the home console version, Blackgate is a completely separate experience that takes place after the events of Arkham Origins. Armature Studio is developing the 2.5-D Metroid-style exploration action game. Industry followers will recognize Armature Studio as the company founded by several of the leads from the Metroid Prime trilogy.

Watch our coverage trailer below to get a taste of all the Batman content headed your way over the next several weeks.

Also in the issue, we get the first look at Telltale Games' next episodic series post-The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us. Based on the Fables comic books, the new series kicks off this summer. We've also got a deep dive on Double Fine's Broken Age, the adventure game that broke Kickstarter records. Outside of huge game features, we spoke with Irrational Games' Ken Levine about creating memorable characters, weigh in on video game gambling, chat with Apple legend Steve Wozniak about the early days of gaming, and look back with Harmonix on its ambitious weekly DLC plan for Rock Band as it comes to a close. All this and more awaits print and digital subscribers.

Double Fine's Broken Age

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Very excited to see Origins officially announced. Sounds like it will be a great issue. I really hope WB Montreal can do the Arkham series justice. The Rocksteady team has done such an incredible job with the Batman licence that it's a little hard to even imagine someone else taking a shot at it. It seems that Rocksteady is providing their full support to WB Montreal and have faith in them so I'll put my faith in them also.

I'm excited about the idea of a metroid style batman, but then i started thinking about how a prison would be built metroid style and i just started to feel bad for the guards. Having to space jump to get to the third floor, super missile to open the bathroom door, curl up into a ball to sit on the toilet which is for some reason the hands of a statue twice as tall as he is. That kind of thing is just messed up.

I can't say I'm too thrilled that they're not going with Rocksteady and they're going back in time in the Batman Universe. I'm still waiting for them to come out with eagerly anticipated open-world inside Gotham City. For some reason I believe the devs over at Rocksteady are somehow eluding such a daunting task, but how marvelous would that be to see the game take place there. Still waiting for it :-)